Apple has always been very, very good at dramatically perfecting an existing product category to the point where it feels like an entirely new category. The Mac wasn't the first computer, the iPhone wasn't the first "smart" phone, the iPad wasn't the first tablet, and the Apple Watch wasn't the first smart watch. I think the play here is to not release another set of AR/VR ski goggles, but to wait for the glasses-like release that immediately redefines the genre and sets Apple years ahead of competition. If they really intend to sell 1M of these things, my instinct tells me it's a bust.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Report: Apple CEO Tim Cook Ordered Headset Launch Despite Designers Wanting to Wait for AR Glasses
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Exactly. I also think one can make the argument that since Steve died there is no one at Apple who can make the ‘why’ case. Executives are very good at telling us ‘what’ and ‘how’ but ‘why’ is lacking. I‘m skeptical that Tim Cook will be able to tell us why wearing bulky googles is the Next Big Thing™ that’s really important. Mark Zuckerberg hasn’t been able to yet. I don’t think developers have some secret sauce or magic that will miraculously turn this into a product millions of people will want.
I agree that a good CEO knows when to stop fiddling around and ship the product. I really want them to ship it so we can finally see what Apple will do in the VR/AR headset space. I predict people hanging on every single rumor will be disappointed but lets get the goggles already.
Last edited:
While this might be true, what the article said was “industrial design team” not “engineering teams”
I don’t think that’s what the article is getting at. Engineers opposed shipping a ski-goggle type headset. They wanted to wait until the tech shrunk down to glasses size. When they say it wasn’t ready, they meant the tech didn’t exist yet, not that it was buggy. Now, I’m not saying it won‘t have bugs, because every software product ever made has bugs, but that is not the thrust of the argument.
Personally, I’m not paying $3000 for a VR headset unless it does something wondrous for people with bad eyes like me. I was going to wait until the glasses version anyway. If that’s you, who cares if Apple ships an intermediate product? Buy it or not, it’s your choice.
No. It‘s their back-end system and the GPS positioning that made it possible.
Not the customer-facing app (though a „cool“-looking app undoubtedly helped to sell it)
That is the point.
When something is displayed between me and real-world objects, it’s partly covering my vision.
As are the frames of glasses. And yes, it can get distracting - though arguably mankind has quite successfully coped with it while driving cars.
We‘ll see about that. You are clearly subscribing to the pipe dream.
But for many of the scenarios you described, I don’t see it happen.
Absolutely. They want to experience the real world.
Smart glasses are interfering with that.
You know how many people dislike wearing glasses?
For their appearance, optical limitations and reduced field of vision?
I posit that a majority of people would rather not (have to) wear glasses than not.
Head-mounted displays will provide poorer vision of the real world and cause additional eye strain.
Let alone the additional need for charging that people aren’t fond of.
You got to have a real killer application to convince people to adopt it in masses.
Especially when there are clear and well-known disadvantages and nuisances to wearing glasses.
And I still fail to see it as an everyday, ubiquitous consumer product worn in public.
👉 Why, do you think, aren’t we all watching 3D movies in cinemas and on TVs in our living rooms by now?
Last edited:
The concept of buying a cell phone locked into a two year plan with a cancellation policy must be in a decade you weren’t conscience yet.
Forgiven.
I worked for Xerox Office Systems Division in the Distributed Services group (Mail, Name server/Clearinghouse, Authentication server) in the mid 1980's. I worked on the mail system - it was the 3rd mail system I had worked on. I went away to grad school and my colleagues all went to Apple where it took them FIVE YEARS to do another mail system!
Given a choice, developers at Apple will NEVER release a product. They will keep tweaking it, looking for perfection, and they will claim they are never happy with how it behaves. You have to force these people to shove products into the market place. They are all perfectionists and are never finished on their own!
In the end, Apple Mail was not innovative at all. What did you expect? GMail is no innovation on Xerox mail from 1982. Only the transport (web vs. courier rpc protocol) has changed, but the look and functionality is exactly identical ... Mail (like VR goggles, believe it or not) is a solved problem. The developers were green and didn't realize they were working on a solved-problem "meeee toooo!" product ...
Given a choice, developers at Apple will NEVER release a product. They will keep tweaking it, looking for perfection, and they will claim they are never happy with how it behaves. You have to force these people to shove products into the market place. They are all perfectionists and are never finished on their own!
In the end, Apple Mail was not innovative at all. What did you expect? GMail is no innovation on Xerox mail from 1982. Only the transport (web vs. courier rpc protocol) has changed, but the look and functionality is exactly identical ... Mail (like VR goggles, believe it or not) is a solved problem. The developers were green and didn't realize they were working on a solved-problem "meeee toooo!" product ...
Last edited:
I'm not an Apple fanboy or sheep, even though I've been using certain products for a long time.
I've never wished for an Apple product to flop, but I am wishing for this to be a miserable failure. It's just not needed, and Apple is splitting themselves into too many projects and the quality is suffering across the board.
They're huge enough, yet they somehow can't seem to manage it.
I've never wished for an Apple product to flop, but I am wishing for this to be a miserable failure. It's just not needed, and Apple is splitting themselves into too many projects and the quality is suffering across the board.
They're huge enough, yet they somehow can't seem to manage it.
Don’t forget.
iPad: Leader and changed the industry. Headphones: Changed the industry.
HomePod wasn’t a flop. By apples standards it may have been less successful which only highlights how insane they are in almost every category they enter if you can consider a totally viable product a “flop”. Let’s be fair.
So true. Steve Jobs had TONS of flops while at Apple. But the big hits have been BIG. I think we just have to let this play out.
I think one thing Apple is good at (and easily has enough stored up cash for) is iterating until something works. The Apple Watch is a great example of that. Unlike Google, modern-day Apple seems to hate abandoning projects they’ve committed to publicly. I think it embarrasses them (aka Cook and friends).
I believe that if it's from Apple, it won't be bulky, and it won't have a heavy battery pack strapped to it. Products like the AirPods have convinced me that Apple knows what they are doing with regards to power efficiency and aesthetics.
💯 agree. I’m not even convinced that Alan Dye is the right person to lead UI design either. His background is Marketing Communications.
Apple's project has been an open secret for a long time now. If Apple wait too long someone else will release a copycat product before them. You can be certain Facebook are developing products that are a close match to what they think Apple Goggles will be.
That’s Apple’s job to explain it to us just like with every other product they released. We’ll just have to wait & see.
Jony Ive is *capable* of being a good designer, as he made lots of good designs while Steve was alive. But once he was put in charge he became awful... he has some kind of minimalism obsession disorder. I think Steve must have reined him in constantly. As soon as he had complete control he got rid of every port imaginable and made the UI so flat you couldn't tell the difference between a button and text.
I quit using Apple products during Ive's reign of terror. Once he was gone and Apple products started shifting back to a balance of function and form, I came back.
I’ve had a lot of great first gen products from Apple, and I wanted to see what kind of specs they would be releasing. A Sony second gen vs an Apple first gen, isn’t a far off comparison. Especially once Apple gets in the game it’ll have much more adoption than the PSVR, which mean more games and apps. It’ll also probably have greater AR capabilities. But if it’s being rushed, it could be way worse than expected.
Jony I may have left because he agreed with a lot of people
Here. No use case. But let’s consider he may be wrong. 🍸😼 I don’t plan to get one but I already know I’m a mediocre spectator. Me and Jony: old as the hills and twice as dusty 🍸🙀😹
Here. No use case. But let’s consider he may be wrong. 🍸😼 I don’t plan to get one but I already know I’m a mediocre spectator. Me and Jony: old as the hills and twice as dusty 🍸🙀😹
The rumored price is quite high, so the only way I can see regular consumers even WANTING to pay that is if it becomes THE new way to connect to people. And I do think the “sell” of this product will be all about the new shared experience. In-person is and always will be the ideal way to connect. But in a day and age when people really value doing things from the safety, convenience, and comfort of their home more than ever, this may be the device that tries to connect us in the next best possible way. Because let’s face it, webcam meetings suck. This will likely aim to bring the virtual connected experience to a whole new level, for things like meetings, shared movie/TV watching, attending sports arenas, tourism/experiences, and hangouts/parties (off the top of my head). It should aim to make these as close as possible to the real life experience, but with the advantages of virtual.
And it’s mixed reality which has further advantages. If you’re watching a show with your friend, instead of going full VR, maybe you just put a screen up on your wall and your friend next to you, so you can still see and interact with your environment. By the way, a great application of AR is people could see exactly what others are seeing (if there’s a camera) and they can point at and mark up things as an overlay. This will help immensely with parental tech support.
I think other companies have done most of these examples with existing headsets but haven’t had huge success yet because of a number of reasons but a major one being that they don’t have the pull that Apple does. Apple will be able to get businesses/developers and consumers on board at a scale and speed that others cannot, because of their weight and because of how they consider the entire experience and package it. Others tend to piecemeal an experience together over time and it’s disjointed. Apple will likely have the entire vision set, have most of the underlying technologies ready, and then do a keynote and marketing campaign that will make people excited to hop on. Because with something this new and expensive to most consumers, having as much as possible ready to go at launch is key.
Of course this is just speculation, and I don’t know details, albeit important ones, like are we really going to be represented by avatars that follow our eyes and facial expressions? I’m sure if we get to look like idealized versions of ourselves, it will strongly appeal to our narcissism and we’d want to use them, but I’m not sure how much looking at someone’s avatar will feel like looking at the person, mainly just because we know it’s an avatar. I guess I’d need to see it to know.
Also FYI people probably won’t be wearing this around in public in general. Because of its conspicuous form factor and short battery life, it’s meant for specific experiences which will usually be in private spaces. Maybe you’ll see someone in public on a scavenger hunt.
Of course the danger of a good virtual shared experience is people may be even less willing to meet in person. How this will affect society in the long run I don’t know. Also facial tracking is creepy.
And it’s mixed reality which has further advantages. If you’re watching a show with your friend, instead of going full VR, maybe you just put a screen up on your wall and your friend next to you, so you can still see and interact with your environment. By the way, a great application of AR is people could see exactly what others are seeing (if there’s a camera) and they can point at and mark up things as an overlay. This will help immensely with parental tech support.
I think other companies have done most of these examples with existing headsets but haven’t had huge success yet because of a number of reasons but a major one being that they don’t have the pull that Apple does. Apple will be able to get businesses/developers and consumers on board at a scale and speed that others cannot, because of their weight and because of how they consider the entire experience and package it. Others tend to piecemeal an experience together over time and it’s disjointed. Apple will likely have the entire vision set, have most of the underlying technologies ready, and then do a keynote and marketing campaign that will make people excited to hop on. Because with something this new and expensive to most consumers, having as much as possible ready to go at launch is key.
Of course this is just speculation, and I don’t know details, albeit important ones, like are we really going to be represented by avatars that follow our eyes and facial expressions? I’m sure if we get to look like idealized versions of ourselves, it will strongly appeal to our narcissism and we’d want to use them, but I’m not sure how much looking at someone’s avatar will feel like looking at the person, mainly just because we know it’s an avatar. I guess I’d need to see it to know.
Also FYI people probably won’t be wearing this around in public in general. Because of its conspicuous form factor and short battery life, it’s meant for specific experiences which will usually be in private spaces. Maybe you’ll see someone in public on a scavenger hunt.
Of course the danger of a good virtual shared experience is people may be even less willing to meet in person. How this will affect society in the long run I don’t know. Also facial tracking is creepy.
Last edited: